High School Refugee
by jesspaige
Summary: In a world where Sydney's never encountered a vampire, her father sends her to High School for - extra Alchemist training? Public Education? A social life? Sydney's not entirely sure what her father's intentions are, but she'll soon find out that High School has a few unexpected surprises for her.
1. Chapter 1

This is it. My first and last year of high school. Walking down the dull hallways of school, I watched the new 7th graders rushing to their first class as if their life depended on it and the 12th graders barely moving from their places.

I couldn't believe it when my father told me I had to go to high school. At the end of one of my home-school lessons, he told me that he enrolled me in a local school so that I could learn the ways of normal people. It could help with being an Alchemist. _Of course it could, dad. _

I don't want to go to school. My father has already taught me practically everything I need to know, and what he didn't; I re-searched myself. I didn't dare say that to him, he would think that I wasn't taking my job as an Alchemist seriously. So here I am, walking to my first ever public school lesson.

Walking in to the classroom, I almost knocked into someone. A boy. I mumbled an apology, briefly looking up at the well built boy. His sandy hair was cut just short enough to keep out of his hazel eyes.

"No worries," he replied with a small smile before continuing to a seat at the very back of the classroom, in the right corner. I however, made my way to the dead centre of the classroom.

It was another five minutes before other students piled in. I watched the small redhead make her way to the seat left of mine (she smiled at me kindly and I was genuinely shocked enough to small faintly back at her), I watched the tall, thin, blond girl sit in the middle of the front row and ignored my flash of envy, I watched the boy who was a little overweight and carrying a biology textbook, even though we were in English, until finally the teacher entered.

"Okay, guys, settle down please," she said to the almost silent class. "Now, we're going to start with-"

The teachers attention was caught by a late student at the door. The boy grinned at her.

"Oh, don't mind me," he said, his long legs taking him quickly to the seat diagonal from me, on my right, "I'm nothing but a spirit. Please continue with this _riveting _tale of self journey I'm sure you were about to tell."

The teacher went beet red.

"Ah, yes, thank you, as I was saying."

The teacher went on to tell us that this was the last year to truly discover ourselves as young adults, and to reach our fullest potential, no matter what cruel and beautiful Mother Earth sends our way. I smiled down at my book, recovered, then looked back up. My eyes automatically caught someone looking at me and followed that instinct until I was looking directly at the boy from before. The lazy smile on his face turned into an amused grin and I once again smiled before looking down at my book, then the teacher.

_For the first day of school, I'm smiling a lot more than I thought I would._

__**So, that's the first chapter, guys! Please let me know if you like it because I'm not sure I have the time to continue writing this, let alone publish regularly. I have the second chapter written up, but we'll just see how this goes. :)**


	2. Chapter 2

After my first class of the day, of the year, ever, I went to the next class, feeling better about this whole school thing.

My second class, Biology, was interesting but nothing I didn't already know. I wasn't asked any questions, so I gladly stayed quiet the entire time, taking notes even though I hardly needed to.

Next was recess so I made my way to my newly appointed locker and stashed my books there. Looking over, I saw the blond boy from earlier, talking to the unfairly thin girl from earlier. They looked like they were friends. The girl was wearing a blue dress with a darker blue ribbon around her waist, her hair straight and more white-blond than golden. Everything about her screamed _perfect_, even her jade-green eyes which were looking directly at me now. I quickly focused back on my locker, pretending that I wasn't just caught staring.

"Hey."

I looked in the other direction of the blond girl and found myself looking at a bright redhead I recognised from earlier.

"Hi." I responded.

"My name's Marcie. Are you new?" she asked.

I nodded, closing my locker and giving her my full attention.

"Sydney." I informed her.

The smile on her face, open and friendly, fit her. Her red hair stood out about her, but it was tied back showing that her eyes were a nice blue.

"Well, Sydney, I'm a prefect of the school and so it's kind of my job so show the new kids around. You up for that?"

This is something my father would approve of. I need to know the school, I need to know the exits, where the cracks are, where vampires might hide during P.E. So, I gave her a small smile and a nod.

"Great," she beamed. "Let me just ask a few of the other new kids."

Marcie walked past me, straight to the two I was caught staring at.

"Hey, guys, I'm Marcie. I'm taking Sydney here on a little tour, would you guys care to join?"

The boy smiled at her.

"Hi, Marcie. Thanks for the offer, but I think Lissa and I are good. We had a look around before school started."

"No worries, see you around…"

"Eddie," the boy filled in for her.

"Okay, Eddie. See you around." This time, it sounded more like a question from Marcie.

"Definitely," Eddie said with and impish grin.

Marcie led the way, and I followed her, finding my voice.

"They're new here?" I asked.

Marcie nodded, seemingly dazed.

"There's six new students here this year, including you, which is pretty odd for this small town school. Everyone's ecstatic that there's new people to talk to, and _God _is that boy attractive."

I looked back behind me to catch another glimpse of Eddie.

"You mean the one we just talked to? Eddie?"

"Mhmm," Marcie replied. "Don't you think he's pretty good looking?"

"I guess," I replied, noncommittal.

Marcie led me through the hallways until we took a left, leading into the cafeteria.

"So, any guesses on what this is?" Marcie laughed.

"The cafeteria." I answered.

Marcie looked at me funny.

"Right. Uh, how about you get something to eat and I'll continue the tour at Lunch? There's still three other kids that I have to talk to, so I should go find them now. Will you be alright?"

I nodded at Marcie who flashed a quick smile then went to the centre of the cafeteria, talking to friends, I assume.

Instead of lining up to get some food, I decided to wander around and figure things out for myself. I walked to the other end of the cafeteria and found more classrooms before ending up in a cross-section that either led you to the library or a field. I looked across the field and noticed that I'd gone full square, the cafeteria on the other end of the field. _I wonder how many times a month they have to pay for window repairs._

I followed the little path that led to the library. The library's not a very good one, with only five large bookshelves and an area they tried to fit more desks in with a screen and an old over-head projector. I walked down one of the isles of bookshelves and looked at a few history books they have.

"'I'm a spirit'? Really, Adrian? Could you be anymore obvious?"

I hunched down and looked between the books to see the brown haired girl from earlier sitting and talking to the boy I had smiled at. She had a scowl on her face.

"Well, I could have gotten a tattoo on my forehead saying-"

"I get it, Adrian."

The boy, Adrian, I couldn't see, but from the way he sounded, he didn't want to be there. He stood, and I stood with him.

"That's not what I said anyway," Adrian went on, "I said: 'I'm nothing but a spirit.' People will interpret that in one way only," he said.

"Yeah, well, we can't afford to assume- Where are you going?"

Adrian had started to walk away.

"I need a cigarette, and we both know you don't like those, so I, thoughtfully, began to get up and leave the premises so you would not be uncomfortable. Plus, we don't want to draw attention from those cranky librarians, do we?" Adrian said, dramatically.

"Oh, just go already," the girl said.

Adrian left, and instead came another boy with dark, black hair that hung over his eyes. I felt bad enough for spying, so instead I left and decided to just go sit somewhere by myself.

As I was leaving, I looked over to find Adrian smoking a cigarette around his amused smile. A teacher was standing there, telling him to put it out or go to the principal.

I couldn't make out what they were saying, but Adrian caught me looking and turned back to the teacher. He said something, then dropped the cigarette and stood on it. The teacher gave him one last murderous look before storming into the library. Adrian once again looked over at me.

"You have a habit of staring at people?" he called out.

I made my way over to him.

"Not usually, but today I'm full of surprises," I told him.

"Is that so?" Adrian said with a small chuckle. "And who are you?"

"Sage. Sydney Sage," I said extending my hand.

He took it, slowly shaking it.

"Ivashkov," he said, amused. "Adrian Ivashkov." He was still shaking my hand.

I looked from his eyes, down to our hands, back up to him and he finally let go.

"So, Sage, what's something good about this place? Because so far, the best thing I've seen are the students," he said, giving me a pointed look before taking out another cigarette and lighting it up.

I tried to keep the displeasure off my face at the smell, but I couldn't help myself.

"Those things will kill you before you find out," I told him.

He took a drag, releasing it with his sentence.

"Yeah, well, I have a feeling I won't be disappointed."

I nodded, before answering his first question.

"I don't know much about this place. It's my first day today, too," I said.

"Yeah?" he asked. He put his cigarette out then gave me a small smile. "Well how about we figure this place out together, Sage?"

Before I could answer him, the bell for third period rang out.

"Maybe another time, Adrian," I said, smiling.

I started walking away, but not before he called out:

"I'm counting on it!"

**Okay, now we're getting into the story a bit. Let me know your thoughts, whether you like it or not, what you think I could improve on. I appreciate any feedback!**


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